In this lesson, I talk about the present perfect, and look at the phrase “I haven’t been swimming for months” that I used in one of my videos. I then give more examples.
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Present Perfect Example
In the example I gave, I said the following:
“I haven’t been swimming for months.”
(The clip was taken from this video.)
I used the present perfect in this way because I was talking about something that has a duration from some time in the past until now.
You can see that the phrase, “to go swimming” changes to “haven’t been swimming.”
Here are three more examples:
- “I haven’t seen my best friend for a few weeks.”
- “They haven’t been to the cinema since November.”
- “I haven’t worked in an office for eight years.”
All of these examples are in the negative. In affirmative sentences, if the verb is continuous, we generally use the present perfect continuous: I’ve been working in an office for five years.
I haven’t been talking to my friend on Skype for ages.
“I haven’t talked to my….”
So, there is difference between ‘haven’t been swimming’ and ‘haven’t been talking to my friend’, isn’t there? Shame on me because I don’t feel much difference. 😉
The first one, “haven’t been swimming” uses the verb (to go), which changes to “been” when used in this way. The way to use the second example is, “I haven’t talked to my friends for..”